Rendering architecture of the DN10000VS

Abstract

The Apollo DN10000VS treats graphics as an integral part of the system architecture. Graphics requirements influence the entire system design. All floating-point computations for graphics are performed by the CPU(s), while rasterizing is handled by simplified hardware having no microcode. We decided to support alpha buffering, quadratic interpolation, and texture mapping directly in hardware. This partitioning reduces the cost of a high-end workstation, without sacrificing high rendering quality and performance. This paper describes some of the design trade-offs which led to the final system design.